Discovering an important global phenomenon would be successful enough for most people, but not for polymath and show-off Alexander Von Humboldt. This German naturalist, explorer, and geographer—born September 14, 1769—not only discovered man-made climate change, he also coined a popular astronomy term and had a species named after him—all of which earned him the nickname "the last man who knew everything."

The son of a Prussian nobleman, Humboldt studied at the University of Göttingen before dedicating himself to geology and mineralogy at the School of Mines in Freiberg. As a student, Humbolt met a man whose influence would change his life forever: Georg Forster, an explorer who had accompanied the famous Captain Cook on his second voyage to the antarctic. Humboldt realized then that he also wanted to explore the world and discover its mysteries.

In 1797, Humboldt finally got his chance to travel. Leaving behind his studies of mine-related geology in Europe, he went off to explore the Spanish colonies in Central and South America. There, Humbolt teamed up with French botanist Aimé Bonpland and trekked across the continent for five years straight, traveling through Venezuela, down the Orinoco River, and through the Andes Mountains to Bogotá.

While studying the plant life and geology of the Americas, Humbolt began to form theories about the ways in which plant life was affected by geography, and vice versa. These ideas laid the groundwork for a field of study that would later become known as biogeography. Later, on a journey in Lima, Peru, Humboldt set a world climbing record when he nearly reached the summit of Mt. Chimborazo, which at the time was the world's tallest known volcano. There, Humboldt solidified his view that certain types of plants, such as lichens or ferns, could only grow under certain conditions, like mountain climates—noting how similar the South American mountain plants were to those in the Swiss Alps, in Europe.

Later, in Venezuela, Humboldt observed the effects of mass deforestation, and predicted that, as technology grew, humans would begin to affect not only their physical environment, but the climate itself. Humboldt eventually published several books containing his extensive research and tales of his travels, including Cosmos, in 1845. It was the publication of this book which popularized the term "cosmos"—an ancient Greek word for the "order of the universe"—in scientific communities.

After spending his entire inherited fortune on his travels, Humboldt returned to Prussia, where he served as an advisor to the King. He spent the rest of his life giving science lectures across Europe, mostly in Germany. Humboldt's influence on scientific studies didn't stop with his own, direct contributions, however. It was only upon reading his work that Charles Darwin became enamored with the idea of exploring South America. In fact, Charles Darwin's copy of Humboldt's Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America, During the Years 1799-1804 is kept at Cambridge University Library, and is filled with scribbles and underlines from Darwin, who took the book with him on his own voyage. Great minds surely do think and travel alike!

Discovering an important global phenomenon would be successful enough for most people, but not for polymath and show-off Alexander Von Humboldt. This German naturalist, explorer, and geographer—born September 14, 1769—not only discovered man-made climate change, he also coined a popular astronomy term and had a species named after him—all of which earned him the nickname "the last man who knew everything."

The son of a Prussian nobleman, Humboldt studied at the University of Göttingen before dedicating himself to geology and mineralogy at the School of Mines in Freiberg. As a student, Humbolt met a man whose influence would change his life forever: Georg Forster, an explorer who had accompanied the famous Captain Cook on his second voyage to the antarctic. Humboldt realized then that he also wanted to explore the world and discover its mysteries.

In 1797, Humboldt finally got his chance to travel. Leaving behind his studies of mine-related geology in Europe, he went off to explore the Spanish colonies in Central and South America. There, Humbolt teamed up with French botanist Aimé Bonpland and trekked across the continent for five years straight, traveling through Venezuela, down the Orinoco River, and through the Andes Mountains to Bogotá.

While studying the plant life and geology of the Americas, Humbolt began to form theories about the ways in which plant life was affected by geography, and vice versa. These ideas laid the groundwork for a field of study that would later become known as biogeography. Later, on a journey in Lima, Peru, Humboldt set a world climbing record when he nearly reached the summit of Mt. Chimborazo, which at the time was the world's tallest known volcano. There, Humboldt solidified his view that certain types of plants, such as lichens or ferns, could only grow under certain conditions, like mountain climates—noting how similar the South American mountain plants were to those in the Swiss Alps, in Europe.

Later, in Venezuela, Humboldt observed the effects of mass deforestation, and predicted that, as technology grew, humans would begin to affect not only their physical environment, but the climate itself. Humboldt eventually published several books containing his extensive research and tales of his travels, including Cosmos, in 1845. It was the publication of this book which popularized the term "cosmos"—an ancient Greek word for the "order of the universe"—in scientific communities.

After spending his entire inherited fortune on his travels, Humboldt returned to Prussia, where he served as an advisor to the King. He spent the rest of his life giving science lectures across Europe, mostly in Germany. Humboldt's influence on scientific studies didn't stop with his own, direct contributions, however. It was only upon reading his work that Charles Darwin became enamored with the idea of exploring South America. In fact, Charles Darwin's copy of Humboldt's Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America, During the Years 1799-1804 is kept at Cambridge University Library, and is filled with scribbles and underlines from Darwin, who took the book with him on his own voyage. Great minds surely do think and travel alike!

Image credit & copyright: Joseph Karl Stieler

September 14, 2019

Are you ready for some football? We hope so because whether or not you like the sport, football season is in full swing. Unfortunately for Panthers fans, not every player is in full swing. Punt returner Ray-Ray McCloud "muffed" two punts last night; "muff" is football's fantastically fun name for trying to catch a kicked ball but flubbing it. To celebrate that word, and really not to harass Ray-Ray about it, can you make a word ladder from MUFF to PUNT that satisfies the clues below? MUFF A sport where dropping the ball isn't necessarily a bad thing Do this well to stay on the ball PUNT Remember: a word ladder is a series of words, starting from one word and ending with another, where each subsequent word is a one-letter change from the previous word (without rearranging, adding, or removing letters). And, of course, each step is a common, valid English word. For instance, you can change CAT to DOG like this: CAT => COT => DOT => DOG.

Think you know the answer? Email support@curious.com with the subject "Teaser #204" and let us know, or check back next week to find out!

Are you ready for some football? We hope so because whether or not you like the sport, football season is in full swing. Unfortunately for Panthers fans, not every player is in full swing. Punt returner Ray-Ray McCloud "muffed" two punts last night; "muff" is football's fantastically fun name for trying to catch a kicked ball but flubbing it. To celebrate that word, and really not to harass Ray-Ray about it, can you make a word ladder from MUFF to PUNT that satisfies the clues below? MUFF A sport where dropping the ball isn't necessarily a bad thing Do this well to stay on the ball PUNT Remember: a word ladder is a series of words, starting from one word and ending with another, where each subsequent word is a one-letter change from the previous word (without rearranging, adding, or removing letters). And, of course, each step is a common, valid English word. For instance, you can change CAT to DOG like this: CAT => COT => DOT => DOG.

Think you know the answer? Email support@curious.com with the subject "Teaser #204" and let us know, or check back next week to find out!

A nightmare for dentists is a daydream for the rest of us. The "Chocolate Room," where everything is made from candy, is the setting for Pure Imagination, one of the most well-regarded musical numbers in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. The song, written by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley for the 1971 film, has been rehashed for the Broadway adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory—along with a new score from the guys who wrote Hairspray. It's hard to compete with Gene Wilder's classic film performance, but Broadway's Wonka, Christian Borle, has the musical chops to hang with the best. His milk-chocolate smooth voice, with subtle vibrato and impeccable control, are more polished than Wilder's. But the praise for Borle doesn't end with his pipes: Broadway director Jack O'Brien exalted the actor for his peculiar mix of "innocence and menace and mystery and charm"—perfect for portraying Wonka! The only thing it appears Borle couldn't nail was the teeth. Anybody living in Wonka's "world of pure imagination" would be wearing a world of pure cavities after 70 performances of this sweet tooth's tune.

Below: The original Pure Imagination, from the 1971 film, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.

A nightmare for dentists is a daydream for the rest of us. The "Chocolate Room," where everything is made from candy, is the setting for Pure Imagination, one of the most well-regarded musical numbers in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. The song, written by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley for the 1971 film, has been rehashed for the Broadway adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory—along with a new score from the guys who wrote Hairspray. It's hard to compete with Gene Wilder's classic film performance, but Broadway's Wonka, Christian Borle, has the musical chops to hang with the best. His milk-chocolate smooth voice, with subtle vibrato and impeccable control, are more polished than Wilder's. But the praise for Borle doesn't end with his pipes: Broadway director Jack O'Brien exalted the actor for his peculiar mix of "innocence and menace and mystery and charm"—perfect for portraying Wonka! The only thing it appears Borle couldn't nail was the teeth. Anybody living in Wonka's "world of pure imagination" would be wearing a world of pure cavities after 70 performances of this sweet tooth's tune.

Below: The original Pure Imagination, from the 1971 film, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.

For many people, Valentine's Day will be celebrated with flowers, cards, and candies; for those in Ghana, February 14th will be a day to celebrate their main export on Chocolate Day. In the above picture, the bisected cacao fruit shows off the raw cocoa beans which, when fermented and dried, are the source of chocolate for candies, drinks, and other cocoa-related products. Cacao plants were originally brought to Ghana in the 19th century by Dutch missionaries, though it was agriculturalist Tetteh Quarshie in 1879 who was responsible for the widespread cultivation of the plant. Several different regions in Ghana now grow and harvest the plant, with the government establishing a Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) in 1947 as the agency overseeing the industry's development. Chocolate Day was established in 2005 to honor the crop's legacy in the country, with local chocolatiers taking part in competitions and educational events taking place across the nation, including tourist trips to Quarshie's original cacao farm in Eastern Ghana. The U.S. may not have as rich of history with cacao crops, but that isn't stopping us from celebrating Chocolate Day in our own way!

For many people, Valentine's Day will be celebrated with flowers, cards, and candies; for those in Ghana, February 14th will be a day to celebrate their main export on Chocolate Day. In the above picture, the bisected cacao fruit shows off the raw cocoa beans which, when fermented and dried, are the source of chocolate for candies, drinks, and other cocoa-related products. Cacao plants were originally brought to Ghana in the 19th century by Dutch missionaries, though it was agriculturalist Tetteh Quarshie in 1879 who was responsible for the widespread cultivation of the plant. Several different regions in Ghana now grow and harvest the plant, with the government establishing a Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) in 1947 as the agency overseeing the industry's development. Chocolate Day was established in 2005 to honor the crop's legacy in the country, with local chocolatiers taking part in competitions and educational events taking place across the nation, including tourist trips to Quarshie's original cacao farm in Eastern Ghana. The U.S. may not have as rich of history with cacao crops, but that isn't stopping us from celebrating Chocolate Day in our own way!

Woah, is that Wednesday Addams? Born in 1893, Beatrice Wood was a pioneering sculptor and libertine, who earned the nicknamed "Mama of Dada" for helping Marcel Duchamp launch Dadaism—a movement that ridiculed the modern art world through deliberately nonsensical work. Decades after the movement faded, Wood continued to harass the public with her provocative creations. Not Married, the sculpture above, satirizes sexist perceptions of bachelorettes in the '60s while challenging Wood's clay-working contemporaries' pursuit of elegant forms. As Wood's cat lady projects a kooky stare, her contours are irregular, even lumpy. Wood spared nobody from her inflammatory antics; she devilishly told actress and feminist Bette Midler that women should sit at their men's feet, sending Midler into a rage. But Wood never actually let a man or grumpy-looking cat control her; rather, she had a retinue of young, shirtless men to dote over her and bring her chocolate from a fridge loaded wall-to-wall with Hershey's bars. Clear-headed all her life, she never smoked or drank, and was a vegetarian. According to the confounding artist, she owed all her success to just three things: "art books, chocolates, and young men."

Woah, is that Wednesday Addams? Born in 1893, Beatrice Wood was a pioneering sculptor and libertine, who earned the nicknamed "Mama of Dada" for helping Marcel Duchamp launch Dadaism—a movement that ridiculed the modern art world through deliberately nonsensical work. Decades after the movement faded, Wood continued to harass the public with her provocative creations. Not Married, the sculpture above, satirizes sexist perceptions of bachelorettes in the '60s while challenging Wood's clay-working contemporaries' pursuit of elegant forms. As Wood's cat lady projects a kooky stare, her contours are irregular, even lumpy. Wood spared nobody from her inflammatory antics; she devilishly told actress and feminist Bette Midler that women should sit at their men's feet, sending Midler into a rage. But Wood never actually let a man or grumpy-looking cat control her; rather, she had a retinue of young, shirtless men to dote over her and bring her chocolate from a fridge loaded wall-to-wall with Hershey's bars. Clear-headed all her life, she never smoked or drank, and was a vegetarian. According to the confounding artist, she owed all her success to just three things: "art books, chocolates, and young men."

Here's some chocolate-covered bad news. Many of the world's cacao plants—the natural ingredient in chocolate—are being decimated by a fungus. Cacao is one of many crops that run the risk of mass annihilation because they have been so narrowly cultivated throughout history, selected for specific taste preferences. The Gros Michel banana became virtually extinct for the same reason. Most varieties of cacao grown today belong to a narrow set of clones that were selected in the 1940s. This means they share very similar genetics, making them susceptible to the same diseases and enabling blights to spread rapidly. That's exactly what happened to the Costa Rican cacao crop in the 1970s. It was almost entirely wiped out by a fungus called Moniliophthora roreri, or frosty pod rot, and has never recovered. Now a new outbreak of frosty pod is threatening the cacao-dependent economy of Jamaica. It started in September of 2016 and is spreading fast. If it were to spread to West Africa, where much of the world's candy chocolate is made, then the entire globe's chocolate supply chain could be disrupted. Researchers at CATIE (an acronym in Spanish for the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center) are trying to develop more resilient strains of cacao in case the worst happens. They have grown 1,235 different varieties of cacao trees, selecting them for taste and disease resistance. Six of the varieties are now being grown by farmers in Central America, Mexico, and Brazil. They produce more pods and are almost completely resistant to the three most dangerous cacao diseases: frosty pod rot, witches' broom, and cacao swollen-shoot. Still, the solution is not perfect, as the plants cannot self-pollinate and the pods tend to be smaller. But CATIE believes the solution lies in diversifying the gene pool of tasty cacao plants, so that they can be more resistant to the next blight. Let's hope so! Given that bananas are suffering a similar fate as chocolate, and they taste so delicious together, I can only wonder if the eradication of peanuts is next?

Here's some chocolate-covered bad news. Many of the world's cacao plants—the natural ingredient in chocolate—are being decimated by a fungus. Cacao is one of many crops that run the risk of mass annihilation because they have been so narrowly cultivated throughout history, selected for specific taste preferences. The Gros Michel banana became virtually extinct for the same reason. Most varieties of cacao grown today belong to a narrow set of clones that were selected in the 1940s. This means they share very similar genetics, making them susceptible to the same diseases and enabling blights to spread rapidly. That's exactly what happened to the Costa Rican cacao crop in the 1970s. It was almost entirely wiped out by a fungus called Moniliophthora roreri, or frosty pod rot, and has never recovered. Now a new outbreak of frosty pod is threatening the cacao-dependent economy of Jamaica. It started in September of 2016 and is spreading fast. If it were to spread to West Africa, where much of the world's candy chocolate is made, then the entire globe's chocolate supply chain could be disrupted. Researchers at CATIE (an acronym in Spanish for the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center) are trying to develop more resilient strains of cacao in case the worst happens. They have grown 1,235 different varieties of cacao trees, selecting them for taste and disease resistance. Six of the varieties are now being grown by farmers in Central America, Mexico, and Brazil. They produce more pods and are almost completely resistant to the three most dangerous cacao diseases: frosty pod rot, witches' broom, and cacao swollen-shoot. Still, the solution is not perfect, as the plants cannot self-pollinate and the pods tend to be smaller. But CATIE believes the solution lies in diversifying the gene pool of tasty cacao plants, so that they can be more resistant to the next blight. Let's hope so! Given that bananas are suffering a similar fate as chocolate, and they taste so delicious together, I can only wonder if the eradication of peanuts is next?

At ease, soldiers. BMC Toys out of Scranton, Pennsylvania, recently announced they will be producing a new line of Plastic Army Women figurines—the first of their kind since the toy's creation in the 1930s. Impetus for the line came after six-year-old Vivian Lord wrote BMC to vent her frustrations. "Some girls don't like pink, so please can you make army girls that look like women?" she wrote, adding, "I would play with them every day and my friends would to!" The president of BMC Toys, Jeff Imel, had long considered producing female plastic soldiers. The only thing holding Imel back from doing so was BMC's limited resources. The company largely uses vintage molds that were constructed by 20th-century toy manufacturers like The Louis Marx Company, Payton, and MPC. To create novel figurines, BMC would need to make a down payment for a production to take place overseas. But Lord's letter inspired Imel to research if there was profitable demand for Green Army Women, after which he quickly wrote Lord back saying, "It's happening." The new line of Green Army Women will drop Christmas 2020, and will include soldiers in four poses, like the iconic kneeled bazooka wielder. The announcement has been met predominantly with enthusiasm, though a subset of BMC's customers has expressed disapproval. Their argument is that making female mid-century soldiers is an act of rewriting history, to which Imel replies these toys function differently than they originally did. "The plastic army men are not just a toy version of soldiers in World War II movies," he argues, "They exist in their own universe." Imel believes every child should have the chance to envision themselves as the hero—or heroine—while playing with them. Also, it's not like WWII-era soldiers ever duked it out on a living room carpet against the likes of Transformers, Lego citizens, and Barbie. I say, girls rock!

At ease, soldiers. BMC Toys out of Scranton, Pennsylvania, recently announced they will be producing a new line of Plastic Army Women figurines—the first of their kind since the toy's creation in the 1930s. Impetus for the line came after six-year-old Vivian Lord wrote BMC to vent her frustrations. "Some girls don't like pink, so please can you make army girls that look like women?" she wrote, adding, "I would play with them every day and my friends would to!" The president of BMC Toys, Jeff Imel, had long considered producing female plastic soldiers. The only thing holding Imel back from doing so was BMC's limited resources. The company largely uses vintage molds that were constructed by 20th-century toy manufacturers like The Louis Marx Company, Payton, and MPC. To create novel figurines, BMC would need to make a down payment for a production to take place overseas. But Lord's letter inspired Imel to research if there was profitable demand for Green Army Women, after which he quickly wrote Lord back saying, "It's happening." The new line of Green Army Women will drop Christmas 2020, and will include soldiers in four poses, like the iconic kneeled bazooka wielder. The announcement has been met predominantly with enthusiasm, though a subset of BMC's customers has expressed disapproval. Their argument is that making female mid-century soldiers is an act of rewriting history, to which Imel replies these toys function differently than they originally did. "The plastic army men are not just a toy version of soldiers in World War II movies," he argues, "They exist in their own universe." Imel believes every child should have the chance to envision themselves as the hero—or heroine—while playing with them. Also, it's not like WWII-era soldiers ever duked it out on a living room carpet against the likes of Transformers, Lego citizens, and Barbie. I say, girls rock!

It's all about the little moments. At least, that's the case for American photographer Nan Goldin, whose most famous work cataloged the everyday lives of LGBTQ people in New York City's East Village, from the 1970s onward. Like many of Goldin's photos, Trixie on the cot, pictured above, captures a small moment which speaks volumes about the subject's larger experiences. It shows a feminine-presenting person in a colorful dress and hair ribbon, taking a cigarette break in what appears to be a dingy, dimly-lit room. The contrast between the subject's delicate appearance and the roughness of their surroundings says a lot about the extremes of living as an LGBTQ person in 1970s New York. The 1970s and 1980s were difficult times for LGBTQ Americans. The AIDS Crisis and an unsupportive government had heightened bigotry against the LGBTQ community. Nan Goldin's photos were a reminder that LGBTQ people were human beings with everyday lives, just like everyone else. In an interview, Nan Goldin once said, "I think the wrong things are kept private." After seeing the power of the private moments Goldin captured, it's hard to not feel emboldened to share such things when they need to be heard or seen.

It's all about the little moments. At least, that's the case for American photographer Nan Goldin, whose most famous work cataloged the everyday lives of LGBTQ people in New York City's East Village, from the 1970s onward. Like many of Goldin's photos, Trixie on the cot, pictured above, captures a small moment which speaks volumes about the subject's larger experiences. It shows a feminine-presenting person in a colorful dress and hair ribbon, taking a cigarette break in what appears to be a dingy, dimly-lit room. The contrast between the subject's delicate appearance and the roughness of their surroundings says a lot about the extremes of living as an LGBTQ person in 1970s New York. The 1970s and 1980s were difficult times for LGBTQ Americans. The AIDS Crisis and an unsupportive government had heightened bigotry against the LGBTQ community. Nan Goldin's photos were a reminder that LGBTQ people were human beings with everyday lives, just like everyone else. In an interview, Nan Goldin once said, "I think the wrong things are kept private." After seeing the power of the private moments Goldin captured, it's hard to not feel emboldened to share such things when they need to be heard or seen.

There's a lot to consider when buying a new car: affordability, safety, fuel efficiency, features, trim, etc. But now, thanks to researchers at MIT, choosing a single color for your car might be a thing of the past. PhotoChromeleon, a new "reprogrammable ink" conceived by MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), allows users to infinitely re-customize the appearance of objects. The ink consists of cyan, magenta, and yellow dyes and can be applied via spray to just about anything. To augment the shade of PhotoChromeleon, all one has to do is position the painted object beneath a UV light projector. Colors, decals, and other patterns can be programmed into the projector, which then alters the paint by exposing it to the appropriate amount of UV light. For small objects, the process presently takes around 15-40 minutes. And even now, PhotoChromeleon is capable of assuming complex imagery, though the current range and accuracy of colors leave room for improvement. Nevertheless, the ink promises to one day cut down on unnecessary waste by allowing us to continuously re-personalize phones, notebooks, and other items on a whim. Also, can you imagine the light-hearted pranks one could pull with PhotoChromeleon? You could borrow your friend's car for half an hour and return with flame decals streaming across its hood—or a giant WASH ME decal!

There's a lot to consider when buying a new car: affordability, safety, fuel efficiency, features, trim, etc. But now, thanks to researchers at MIT, choosing a single color for your car might be a thing of the past. PhotoChromeleon, a new "reprogrammable ink" conceived by MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), allows users to infinitely re-customize the appearance of objects. The ink consists of cyan, magenta, and yellow dyes and can be applied via spray to just about anything. To augment the shade of PhotoChromeleon, all one has to do is position the painted object beneath a UV light projector. Colors, decals, and other patterns can be programmed into the projector, which then alters the paint by exposing it to the appropriate amount of UV light. For small objects, the process presently takes around 15-40 minutes. And even now, PhotoChromeleon is capable of assuming complex imagery, though the current range and accuracy of colors leave room for improvement. Nevertheless, the ink promises to one day cut down on unnecessary waste by allowing us to continuously re-personalize phones, notebooks, and other items on a whim. Also, can you imagine the light-hearted pranks one could pull with PhotoChromeleon? You could borrow your friend's car for half an hour and return with flame decals streaming across its hood—or a giant WASH ME decal!

For Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, leaving behind the complexity and noise of his previous avant-garde style meant finding a new, more graceful way to make music. After a period of reclusiveness and writer's block in the late '60s, Pärt developed his tintinnabuli style, or bell-like tonality, in part from his studies of early sacred music. To achieve this effect in works like Spiegel im Spiegel ("Mirror in the Mirror"), Pärt has the keyboard play ascending three-note arpeggio figures (chords broken down into individual notes), with the occasional droning string notes. The results ring ethereal and rival some of the most delicate pieces in classical music history. Pärt, who turns 84 today, composes with a level of mindfulness which imparts a feeling of "love for every note." Since Pärt is one of the most performed living composers, we can say with confidence that both musicians and audiences can really feel the love in his music!

For Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, leaving behind the complexity and noise of his previous avant-garde style meant finding a new, more graceful way to make music. After a period of reclusiveness and writer's block in the late '60s, Pärt developed his tintinnabuli style, or bell-like tonality, in part from his studies of early sacred music. To achieve this effect in works like Spiegel im Spiegel ("Mirror in the Mirror"), Pärt has the keyboard play ascending three-note arpeggio figures (chords broken down into individual notes), with the occasional droning string notes. The results ring ethereal and rival some of the most delicate pieces in classical music history. Pärt, who turns 84 today, composes with a level of mindfulness which imparts a feeling of "love for every note." Since Pärt is one of the most performed living composers, we can say with confidence that both musicians and audiences can really feel the love in his music!

Would you wear a perfume line if it was endorsed by Cleopatra VII Philopator, the fabled Queen of Ptolemaic Egypt? Earlier this year, two anthropologists teamed up to replicate a 2,000-year-old perfume formula used when Cleopatra's family ruled Egypt. Researchers Robert Littman and Jay Silverstein launched their endeavor after discovering an ancient fragrance factory dating to 300 B.C.E., located in the ruins of Thmuis, near Cairo, Egypt. There, they excavated two decayed residues that had once been perfumes. Thmuis had been a manufacturing ground for Mendesian and Metopian—two of the finest perfumes of antiquity—so Littman and Silverstein contacted experts to recreate each residue's recipe. Egyptologists did just that with help from ancient Greek texts. Their two finished perfumes contain a mixture of myrrh, cardamom, olive oil, and cinnamon. These resurrected "Mendesians" and "Metopians" are far mustier and viscous than contemporary colognes, with a longer-lasting effect. But in spite of Littman and Silverstein's success, nobody can say for sure that Cleopatra ever used them. Legend has it Cleopatra brewed her own personal cologne and that when she met Marc Antony at Tarsus, the sails of her boat were so perfumed that he smelled her before he saw her—reminds me of a few girls from my high school days! Littman refers to Mendesian as "the Chanel No. 5 of ancient Egypt." If you want to take a whiff yourself, both ancient perfumes will be on display in the "Queens of Egypt" exhibition running at the National Geographic Museum until September 15. Personally, I'd be wary of any scent that spellbound the likes of Caesar and Marc Antony!

Would you wear a perfume line if it was endorsed by Cleopatra VII Philopator, the fabled Queen of Ptolemaic Egypt? Earlier this year, two anthropologists teamed up to replicate a 2,000-year-old perfume formula used when Cleopatra's family ruled Egypt. Researchers Robert Littman and Jay Silverstein launched their endeavor after discovering an ancient fragrance factory dating to 300 B.C.E., located in the ruins of Thmuis, near Cairo, Egypt. There, they excavated two decayed residues that had once been perfumes. Thmuis had been a manufacturing ground for Mendesian and Metopian—two of the finest perfumes of antiquity—so Littman and Silverstein contacted experts to recreate each residue's recipe. Egyptologists did just that with help from ancient Greek texts. Their two finished perfumes contain a mixture of myrrh, cardamom, olive oil, and cinnamon. These resurrected "Mendesians" and "Metopians" are far mustier and viscous than contemporary colognes, with a longer-lasting effect. But in spite of Littman and Silverstein's success, nobody can say for sure that Cleopatra ever used them. Legend has it Cleopatra brewed her own personal cologne and that when she met Marc Antony at Tarsus, the sails of her boat were so perfumed that he smelled her before he saw her—reminds me of a few girls from my high school days! Littman refers to Mendesian as "the Chanel No. 5 of ancient Egypt." If you want to take a whiff yourself, both ancient perfumes will be on display in the "Queens of Egypt" exhibition running at the National Geographic Museum until September 15. Personally, I'd be wary of any scent that spellbound the likes of Caesar and Marc Antony!

For International Literacy Day this week, we're celebrating some true heroes who rode trusty steeds on their epic quests for literacy! As part of President Roosevelt's New Deal programs to combat the poverty-inducing effects of the Great Depression, the Pack Horse Library Project began bringing reading materials to eastern Kentuckians in 1934. The librarians rode twice a month on routes up to 120 miles long to circulate books and magazines to reach the Appalachian population, a group estimated to have a 31 percent illiteracy rate at the time. Initially, the program's modest supplies were acquired from local donations. As word spread across the country, dozens more donations came in with one former-Kentuckian in California donating 500 books in honor of his late mother. By the time the program ended in 1943 (replaced three years later with motorized bookmobiles), Pack Horse Librarians were immensely popular in the 57 communities they served. If only we could receive our library check-outs on horseback!

For International Literacy Day this week, we're celebrating some true heroes who rode trusty steeds on their epic quests for literacy! As part of President Roosevelt's New Deal programs to combat the poverty-inducing effects of the Great Depression, the Pack Horse Library Project began bringing reading materials to eastern Kentuckians in 1934. The librarians rode twice a month on routes up to 120 miles long to circulate books and magazines to reach the Appalachian population, a group estimated to have a 31 percent illiteracy rate at the time. Initially, the program's modest supplies were acquired from local donations. As word spread across the country, dozens more donations came in with one former-Kentuckian in California donating 500 books in honor of his late mother. By the time the program ended in 1943 (replaced three years later with motorized bookmobiles), Pack Horse Librarians were immensely popular in the 57 communities they served. If only we could receive our library check-outs on horseback!

Here's a lesson from the past that still applies today: A person shouldn't be treated like an animal just because they're behind bars. That's the message the inmates at New York's Attica Correctional Facility yelled as they rioted on this day in 1971. In the years leading up to the revolt, prisoners had been subjected to inhumane, often racially-charged mistreatment. There were packed into cells, allowed to shower once a week, given one toilet paper roll a month, and had their mail censored—among many other abuses. The boiling point came when prisoners walking in tandem to breakfast overwhelmed their guards. A spontaneous riot followed, and the 2,200 prisoners took control of the facility. After one guard was mortally injured in the fray, a Muslim contingent of prisoners managed to quell the violence, and opted to hold the remaining 39 guards and prison faculty hostage. The inmate leaders issued demands to the surrounding state police, including better living conditions and expanded religious freedom. New York Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller summoned the National Guard. Negotiations were tense, and New York Correction Commissioner Russell Oswald, while receptive to calls for improved living conditions, refused to grant any rioters amnesty for their actions. Negotiators urged Governor Rockefeller to make a personal appearance as a show of good faith. Instead, he sicced the National Guard on the prisoners on the morning of September 13, after the rioters refused an ultimatum. Helicopters rained tear gas from above as the National Guard blindly fired 3,000 rounds into the ensuing haze. They killed 10 hostages and 29 inmates, and even executed some of the latter. After the massacre, the authorities told the media that the rioters had killed the hostages in cold blood. And in the following weeks, police had their revenge on inmates by forcing them through gauntlets of nightsticks. A class-lawsuit was brought against the prison and the state in 1974, but victims weren't awarded money until 2000. Today, Attica serves as a reminder that dehumanizing prisoners doesn't right their varied wrongs. If anything, all it does is create animals on both sides of the bars.

Here's a lesson from the past that still applies today: A person shouldn't be treated like an animal just because they're behind bars. That's the message the inmates at New York's Attica Correctional Facility yelled as they rioted on this day in 1971. In the years leading up to the revolt, prisoners had been subjected to inhumane, often racially-charged mistreatment. There were packed into cells, allowed to shower once a week, given one toilet paper roll a month, and had their mail censored—among many other abuses. The boiling point came when prisoners walking in tandem to breakfast overwhelmed their guards. A spontaneous riot followed, and the 2,200 prisoners took control of the facility. After one guard was mortally injured in the fray, a Muslim contingent of prisoners managed to quell the violence, and opted to hold the remaining 39 guards and prison faculty hostage. The inmate leaders issued demands to the surrounding state police, including better living conditions and expanded religious freedom. New York Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller summoned the National Guard. Negotiations were tense, and New York Correction Commissioner Russell Oswald, while receptive to calls for improved living conditions, refused to grant any rioters amnesty for their actions. Negotiators urged Governor Rockefeller to make a personal appearance as a show of good faith. Instead, he sicced the National Guard on the prisoners on the morning of September 13, after the rioters refused an ultimatum. Helicopters rained tear gas from above as the National Guard blindly fired 3,000 rounds into the ensuing haze. They killed 10 hostages and 29 inmates, and even executed some of the latter. After the massacre, the authorities told the media that the rioters had killed the hostages in cold blood. And in the following weeks, police had their revenge on inmates by forcing them through gauntlets of nightsticks. A class-lawsuit was brought against the prison and the state in 1974, but victims weren't awarded money until 2000. Today, Attica serves as a reminder that dehumanizing prisoners doesn't right their varied wrongs. If anything, all it does is create animals on both sides of the bars.

British artist Benjamin Shine is giving new meaning to the words facial contouring. His recently unveiled work Quietude at the Mind Body Green headquarters in Tucson, Arizona, is the latest in his gravity-defying tulle sculptures. To create gauzy facial outlines like those in Quietude, Shine employs a number of fiber art techniques, like ironing and pinning, and wraps the materials around industrialized steel bent into figurative shapes. The results are human and ethereal all at once, and under the Tucson sun, Quietude is a stark splash of pink hues that take on the colors of sunlight during the day. Shine's work, like its arid and vast surroundings, can be appreciated for its ability to defy imagination and instill a sense of calm wonder in the viewer. Which is a hard-earned reward for him, after admitting on Instagram that it took three years of trial and error to finally get the outdoor installation set up. We're just glad to hear that some amazing artists never think it's tulle late to achieve the seemingly impossible!

Below: more of Shine's delicate tulle sculptures, the second of which he created for his own wedding. Also, a video of Shine discussing his techniques for creating Bergdorf Goodman window displays.

British artist Benjamin Shine is giving new meaning to the words facial contouring. His recently unveiled work Quietude at the Mind Body Green headquarters in Tucson, Arizona, is the latest in his gravity-defying tulle sculptures. To create gauzy facial outlines like those in Quietude, Shine employs a number of fiber art techniques, like ironing and pinning, and wraps the materials around industrialized steel bent into figurative shapes. The results are human and ethereal all at once, and under the Tucson sun, Quietude is a stark splash of pink hues that take on the colors of sunlight during the day. Shine's work, like its arid and vast surroundings, can be appreciated for its ability to defy imagination and instill a sense of calm wonder in the viewer. Which is a hard-earned reward for him, after admitting on Instagram that it took three years of trial and error to finally get the outdoor installation set up. We're just glad to hear that some amazing artists never think it's tulle late to achieve the seemingly impossible!

Below: more of Shine's delicate tulle sculptures, the second of which he created for his own wedding. Also, a video of Shine discussing his techniques for creating Bergdorf Goodman window displays.

The MP3 file format: without it, we wouldn't have had Winamp, Napster, Rhapsody, and countless other digital music services in the late '90s. For some, the mention of these things brings back nostalgic memories of early digital music on the internet. For others, the format was a nightmare, causing draconian piracy lawsuits and costing the recording industry millions of dollars in record sales. Love 'em or hate 'em, MP3s changed the way we listen to music forever—even if they had been around for about a decade before they became popular.

The origins of the MP3 date back to 1988. A call from the Audio branch of the ISO MPEG group (International Organization for Standardization and Moving Picture Experts Group, respectively) asked technology companies to come up with an audio coding standard for digital sound files. At the same time, German electrical engineer Karlheinz Brandenburg was a student at the German University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, where a professor asked him to address the issue of transmitting digital music over phone line networks. As he graduated and went to work for the Fraunhofer Institute, Brandenburg continued his research into making a compressed audio file so small it would only occupy a few megabytes of space, yet retain enough of a recording's quality to relay a pleasant listening experience. To complete this task, it's said that he listened to an a capella version of Tom's Diner by American electronic-folk singer Suzanne Vega some 1,000 times—an anecdote that has given Vega the nickname "the Mother of the MP3."

The first Fraunhofer Institute-licensed MP3 encoder software was called I3enc, and it had a public release in 1995. It didn't make much of a splash until some computer hackers got hold of it. One of the Australian members of the Warez Scene software piracy community bought the software with a stolen credit card and cracked the licensing in order to distribute it online as "freeware." Soon, other hacker groups were competing to outdo each other, with one called Rabid Neurosis getting albums by the likes of Eminem and TLC before the records were even released in stores. In 1997, free software like Winamp made it easy for the public to turn their own CDs into MP3 files; combine that with the rise of the peer-to-peer file-sharing software Napster in 1999, and the multi-million dollar music business had a digital disaster on its hands.

The good ol' outlaw days of downloading music for free—and not paying $18.99 for a CD with one hit single—hit a wall 16 years ago today on September 8, 2003, when the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) began their lawsuits against 261 file-sharers who were said to have distributed over 1,000 songs each. Under U.S. copyright laws, the defendants could have faced up to $150,000 fines for each tune, though some were said to have made settlements in the ballpark of $3,000. With the burial of Napster under RIAA lawsuits just a few years before in 2001, the threats against sharing MP3s sounded clearly. However, the MP3 still signaled that the internet required some restructuring of how music would be heard, shared, and purchased in the 21st century.

The rise in paid music services also came with a demand for better-sounding digital audio files than the MP3 provided. The first big legitimate online music store iTunes primarily uses Advanced Audio Coding (AAC), while streaming service Spotify uses Ogg Vorbis, and audiophile companies like Acoustic Sounds use Free Lossless Audio Codec files (FLAC) for their downloads. The Fraunhofer Institute officially declared the MP3 "dead" in 2017, when its program for licensing MP3 patents and software was terminated. Maybe it's time to fire up the old Zune or iPod Mini in tribute to the late revolutionary file format.